Much in the way Salem, Massachusetts, has committed itself to touristy fanfare based on four-hundred-year-old stories, or Roswell, New Mexico, entertains healthy attractions by leaning into the mysticism of alien life, the town of Loveland, Ohio, finds itself in the thick of its own far-out local legend. While Frogman looks like a campy indulgence for the town to make an extra buck off those passing through, amateur director Dallas Kyle (Nathan Tymoshuk) is resolute in proving Frogman’s existence stemming from an encounter with the creature he had as a boy traveling through the town with his parents.
When we meet Dallas, he isn’t doing too good, slurping down children’s Froggy Pebbles cereal from the guest room of his sister’s house that he’s being kicked out of. As we hear more about Dallas from his sister, a clearer understanding of his Frogman obsession emerges. She talks about how Dallas always romanticized their last family trip before their parents split up, which forces Scotty (Benny Barrett) to consider the lasting effect the trip had on Dallas. Upon hearing this, Scotty decides to take a road trip to Frogman’s home with his old video-making pal. Amy (Chelsey Grant), a long-time friend and one-time romantic partner of Dallas, decides to tag along before moving away to pursue opportunities as an actress.
The outcrop of the town is exactly as aforementioned, with frog hats, t-shirts, stuffed animals, etc., filling shop windows and adorned by passersby. The film groans over the commercialization of serious historical subject matter and hints at appropriation by establishing Frogman’s roots in traditional Native-American folklore. It’s tangibly similar to an early episode of Futurama where Fry visits the moon and sees the history of Neil Armstrong’s spacewalk has been reduced to a theme park ride. The story is based on something, it’s just shrouded in years of commercialized propaganda. Like Fry, Dallas becomes determined to see beyond the surface level façade and goes looking for answers from the town kook and exploring the swamps himself. So, it’s no wonder that, like the Futurama episode, Frogman also goes off the rails.
Heavily inspired by The Blair Witch Project, Frogman also heads into the woods, provides super shaky camera moments, and contains fights about maps. Thankfully, the wobbly bits don’t induce vomiting by lasting very long. Something else I appreciated about this found footage film was that it didn’t make the viewer wait overly long before getting you into the real spectacle it promises. At only seventy-seven minutes, things are primed to happen fast. The film does find a bit of meandering in its setup, yet it never feels like anything is unnecessary, even if it feels like it could have benefitted from cutting about ten minutes. Relying on the character depth created preserves a more connected experience when the trio hits the woods, incurring your full attention as the scares mount.
Sound and atmosphere mean a lot in found footage, and there’s no shortage of ominous croaking and strange occurrences. Even the gooey viscera left on trees and other surfaces elicits a reaction, while the minimal lighting and zoom of the camera aid in the audience’s response to the absolute dark of the unlit forest at night. Though darkness never approaches that level, there are moments reminiscent of The Outwaters, as flashlights yield nothing beyond the blank space of blackness it was aimed toward.
The effects are a bit of a mixed bag. Remember, we’re dealing with a low-budget indie, and because of that, director Anthony Cousins tries lots of tricks with overlays and camera interference. The reason the diegetic director wants to use an old camera is likely to entertain Cousins’ vision and pull off some movie magic. To this, Cousins, who has had segments in the analog love-letter Scare Package flicks and directed the explosive short Every Time We Meet for Ice Cream Your Whole Fu*king Face Explodes, has some experience. Whenever we initially see Frogman up close, it’s quickly distorted by the camera, helping to mask any digital details and create heavier tension. We do, eventually, get a good look at Frogman in all his glory. However, the prestigious moments are surrounded by unfathomable, unkempt moments, begging any skeptic to dismiss the value of the footage by saying they can’t make out anything clearly.
There’s also a lot to admire in the subtext here, too. The small-town tourist trap commercialism poised to keep the town from dying creates an altar to a god, and the town lives to support it. Frogman ultimately becomes Lovecraftian in nature with cults, conspiracies, some interdimensional inference, and some gnarly practical effects, though tentacles are traded for webbed feet. Essentially, it’s everything I could have wanted out of this strong found footage experience, plunging into lore-defining depths that equally gross out and horrify.
The whole romp is akin to watching an extended V/H/S sequence (Chloe Okuno’s “Storm Drain” sequence from V/H/S/94 comes to mind), but it never overstays its welcome and could honestly have revved the engine a little longer, in my opinion. Then again, maybe we’ll get lucky, and Frogman II: The Legend of Froggy Creek could be a tadpole of a thought in the minds of writers Anthony Cousins and John Karsko.
This is one of those rare films both fellow reviewer JP Nunez and I actually agree on. Regardless, this movie has me declaring MILF (Man, I Love Frogman) because, like the interviewee says in the film, “Frogman Fu*ks.”
Frogman is now streaming on Screambox and can be rented or purchased on PVOD through iTunes, Amazon Prime, and Fandango at Home.
